Rex Ryan confident Jets ‘will be a playoff team’

New York Jets coach Rex Ryan is confident he will lead his team back to the playoffs this season.

“I believe we’re better than that. I believe we’re a lot better than that,” Ryan said of last year’s 8-8 finish, per Manish Mehta of the New York Daily News. “Eight and eight would be a hell of a disappointment for us. I’m just telling you that I believe this team is on the cusp of doing some special things. . . . I’m confident we will be a playoff team.”

Ryan believes this years roster is better than what the team had last season.

“I think it’s a transition year, but we’re going to bring it to another level. I know where I want this team to go and that’s where I expect this team to go. So, you know, are we a better team? Dang right. . . . That may be a fact that we’re rebuilding this team, but by no means does that mean that I don’t expect to improve on where we were.”

Ryan signed a one-year deal in the offseason and will almost certainly need a winning season in 2014 to keep his job.

“When I came in from Day One, this team was way different back then,” Ryan said of his previous Super Bowl guarantees. “This team just lost Brett Favre, a Hall-of-Fame quarterback. This team had that same moniker, ‘Same Old Jets.’ Well, I wanted everyone to know. I wanted to make damn sure they knew that it wasn’t the Same Old Jets and it was never going to be the Same Old Jets as long as I was here. And so I think that’s why I said what I said. I wanted to make sure my team believed that I believed that we were going to win Super Bowls.”

“Now, it’s more the fact that, ‘Hey look, I know who we are,’ ” he added. “My team is very well aware of who we are. But if (making Super Bowl predictions) will add pressure where we can’t be at our very best and possibly add some fuel to the fire to the opponent, I don’t need to do that. So I’m not going to do it.”